Whenever The Keepers disappear a bit and our postings become sporadic and pointed, you can bet we’re either out riding our bikes or we’ve been busy working away at new features for the site. We have a number of features in various states of completion, and we’ll be rolling them out over the course of the next few weeks and months as they reach maturity and we become convinced they’re working reasonably well.
The beautiful thing about a word like “reasonable” is that it contains within it the perfect amont of vagueness while giving the impression of specificity. After all, there’s no universally agreed-upon reasonable degree of reasonable, meaning that what seems reasonable to me might be completely unreasonable to others. Take, for example, the number of times the word “reasonable” appears in this paragraph. Completely unreasonable.
Back to the point, when I say our new features are working reasonably well, I mean to say that three requirements have been satisfied. First, the vision for the feature is well understood. (The vision does not need to be realized in the release, but it does need to allow for it to become realized at some later stage.) Second, the initial feature set is working sufficiently well that I got tired of testing before I found any major problems. Third, it looks good.
At this time, we’re releasing two new features, both of which represent an initial iteration which we plan to expand on as the features grow and the community adopts them (or not). As we gather feedback on what new features would be helpful, we’ll incorporate it into the subsequent releases (or not).
The VVallpapers
Velominati is founded on the idea of sharing with each other the little things about Cycling that make this sport so amazing. On that premise, providing desktop Wallpapers or, indeed VVallpapers, has been part of the envisioned feature set from the beginning; to select photos from our collective archives within the community that represent Cycling in some way, and provide a specific place to share them with each other. But, like so many other ideas we have kicking around, there simply aren’t enough hours in a day to make everything come to reality.
However, a discussion last week spurred us into action, and we present you with The VVallpapers. We haven’t really found a good home for them yet, but for the time being at least, they can be found through the footer and via The Keepers. The same principle applies as elsewhere; post your suggestions for additional photos for inclusion, and we’ll update the main list with the best ones. Several initial wallpapers have been added already as a start.
The Community
As we know, there is great sense of community on Velominati, and increasingly we’re seeing the desire to know a little bit more about our fellow members. To that end, we’ve put together a Community page which provides a mechanism to share some background information and posting activity. Obviously, we wanted to provide this as an option to people who wish to share information, but still make sure that people who want to stay anonymous can do so. To that end, people who have an account at Velominati may log in and update their profile, sharing whatever information they are comfortable sharing, including a bio, their location, and various social networking coordinates. For those who don’t have a Velominati account or who don’t fill out their profile, only a very basic amount of information is shown along with their posting activity. The fundamental idea is to allow people to choose what they’d like to share; only the handle, photo, and website are shown by default.
To access anyone’s profile, simply click their name in the posting threads. The only downside to that is that in order for you to access a member’s profile, they need to have posted at least once; there are loads of members who have never posted any comments. Unfortunately, this release doesn’t provide a mechanism for viewing their profiles.
To that point, however, is the notion that The Community in particular is viewed by us as an initial iteration; we have a mountain of ideas that we think will help foster a sense of community here, and we’re sure you do as well. With that in mind, have a look, fill out your profile (or don’t), and start using learning about the community. If you have ideas or suggestions, we’d love to hear about them.
Thanks as always to everyone who comes here and makes this all worth while.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Mikael Liddy
@Sean from the great white north
This is in Norway and is the Trollstigen(Trolls Ladder) mountain road. Sure as hell is an awesome road for sure although the ascent is probably only about 850m.
@frank
Yeah, the planning side of it is very handy. I like to be aware of what I'm getting myself into. I'm beginning to push up my distances and if I'm going to find myself at the bottom of a big hill 70km into a ride I like to be able to factor that into my pace prior to it in the same way that I've started to look at the elevation profiles for club runs to make sure that my efforts are more measured. There's no point in taking a long pull if you then come round a corner to find a hill that you'll get dropped on.
I'm starting to think that a Garmin 500 or the like is going to be an inevitable investment. Being relatively new to road bikes, I do find it difficult to judge how I'm riding. For example, I might feel that it's coming together with a bit of style and that the guns are in fine fettle only to find at the end of a ride that I'm down by a minute or that regardless of form I gain a minute on a day of strong headwinds. On the bike I'm not that interested in the data, except maybe time and speed but in addition to getting a feel for how I'm going from what my body and the bike are telling me, I'd like to be able compare rides on each route on a segment by segment basis and try to understand what differentiates the the slow days from the fast days.
This is on the Castelli's UK importers site. I'm a sucker for a good black and white shot. I'm guessing it's on this years Giro route, but anyone know where?
@anotherdownunder
Just looking at the second one raises the heart rare a notch or two. Foreboding!
ridewithgps does look good but they say they are working on adding bulk upload (from device) and also teams and groups, which some others have already.
There's also something a bit strange - I have uploaded from my Garmin but the figures that come out don't match what was on the device, or what it showed in Garmin Connect or Strava. Basic figures like moving time and total distance.
I'm sending them some files to look at so will let you know what they say. In the meantime I'll keep using Strava so thanks for adding it to the profiles.
@ChrisO
I've had some similar problems with the speed that it shows in the activities summary being different from the speed shown in the individual activities. It seems to be something to do with entering a different moving time to overall activity time. Route 11 Long being a prime example although it is different from the other's in that it was imported as a route fro someone else's .gpx fie for a club run and still seems to contain some residual bit's of their previous activity.
@anotherdownunder
Do you own that picture of the Stelvio, or at least have permission to let us put it in the VVallpapers? That looks totally rad.
@frank
Yes, as I took it with my camera. I would be honoured to have it added in. This one was taken part way up, looking to the summit where the other pic was taken.
Is the resolution OK or would you prefer pic to be emailed?
One more..... Gavia on Bormio side.
@All A brilliant idea for a new feature which popped into my head when reading proCycling on the way home from work. It basically breaks down to a Velominati Hall of Fame. Each month the keepers create a new page with the candidate on it. We all submit the questions we would like to be answered by said hero. The Keepers through their infinite wisdom and channeling of The V decide the top 20 questions. Once this is done a hand written letter on the Velominati header paper is sent to the Hall of fame candidate which will hopefully get a reply. I know some will be dead so the letter part will not be possible. Also on the original post we could have people submitting pictures they think should be used in the hall of fame as well as famous quotes. Each month a new hero is added to the hall of fame with a picture, palmares, famous quotes and a copy of the letter and reply. We should also provide the hero with an account to access and comment incase they ever feel the need to do so. The envelope could also be covered in very light grey text on a 25 degree angle(NorthEast) all the handles of the current memebers of the Velominati.
I think the hand written letter will definitely get more attention that a typed one or an email which tends to get picked up by minions.