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| The March ride schedule is posted and available at http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Schedule/RideSchedule.htm
The Chain Gang web site http://surf-ici.com/chaingang has been up for about 1 year now. It receives an average of 14 unique visitors per day and over 5000 unique visitors for the first year. If you are a regular visitor you still only count for 1 unique visit each month. This is definitely more than the number of printed newsletters that I can be talked into doing. I do not usually keep entering the site into the search engines and therefor it does not do well but our site has just recently been found by several search engines spiders and traffic, especially email, is increasing. Most surfer find us from another AZ bike site such as GABA and ABC. This is high quality traffic with real interest in the club. What has really grown rapidly is the number of people receiving the Chain Mail. Before I put the sign up banner all over the site we had 45, or so, people on the list. After I posted the sign up form this newsletter now goes to over 150 people. This has happened in the last 3 months. I love it. I get about three people signing up each week after the initial rush was over. Most of the people are from the Prescott area but people have literally signed up from all over the world. The biggest number of readers from foreign countries are from Mexico and the UK. This is very exciting because it is such a useful tool. I am always looking for other writers. I also get a lot of regular e-mail from the site usually asking questions about riding in this area. I just do not have the time to answer all of them and have been forwarding some to George to answer for me. Now, I think that the best thing to do is let you readers answer them. I would like to post your answers in future Chain Mail because I am sure the people from out of town would be interested in your replies. Please cc me if you write back. Tim Sirs; I am a retired cycling coach who is using my site to promote cycling by providing free coaching and information to racers, recreational cyclists, coaches, and fans online. I request that you make this information available to your cyclists by posting a link at your site for my site. Let me know if you do and I will reciprocate. My site is Coach Carl Online at http://hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/Index.html Thank you. God Bless, Carl Cantrell Tim, This is something of a message in a bottle having found my way to the Chaingang pages. On 8 March I fly from UK to LA with my bike, tent and kit. A cycle tour will take me to Phoenix where, on 25 March, I fly back home. I have toured all over - ten years ago I went to southern California across the deserts + Death Valley, but Arizona seems to have particular challenges It sounds a wild and empty place. I have to admit to being a bit scared of the snakes! I would welcome an ideas about: routes to take I have sent away for cycle route maps and found the Arizona Bike Map pages - but again would welcome any further advice. John J.Thompsonno smamhefce.ac.uk PS I have read here that 27.25 rather than 700c tyres are still the norm in the USA. Is this right? If so it is a bit annoying since I have just changed over to 700c - mainly to ensure I can get spares on tour. Dear Webmaster: I am writing to you on behalf of the American Lung Association's National Office in New York. We have selected your site as a progressive and informative cycling website. We would like to propose an e-relationship in which we could promote the 2000 Big Ride Across America on your site. This promotion would consist of banner placement and a hyper-link to our Big Ride website, www.bigride.com. The Big Ride is the largest cross-country bicycle ride in U.S. history and has proved to be a tremendous success. In the past two years alone, over 870 riders, with diverse backgrounds and abilities challenged themselves to ride 3,250 miles in 48 days. In completing this life-changing event, these riders raised over $7.6 million dollars to fight lung disease and promote lung health. We believe an e-relationship would be mutually beneficial as that it would help us recruit riders and volunteers; in return driving traffic to your website. Not only would you be helping the ALA in the fight against lung disease, your website would be listed as an e-partner, along with a hyper-link to your site. In the two months prior to the event, www.bigride.com received over 1,000,000 hits. By the end of the event, our website was receiving over 100,000 per day! We are presently promoting the 2000 Big Ride Across America from Seattle to Washington D.C., June 19 to August 5, 2000. Please visit www.bigride.com or www.lungusa.org to learn more about this incredible fundraising/cycling adventure. Please contact Brian McGinley if you are interested in working with the American Lung Association on the on-line promotion of the Big Ride Across America. Regards. Brian J. McGinley Manager, Events Marketing and Special Projects (212) 315-8839 or bmcginleyno smamlungusa.org From: Jonathan L R Belsey Hi my name is Jon Belsey from England, I am thinking of bringing a group of people over to the states in year 2001 for a mountain biking holiday. What we are after is some good scenic routes cross-country. We also were looking for some bike guides to take us out say for a five day period, with each route to be appox 40-50 miles. We would also need to hire some good bikes for the week and maybe camp at a local camp site. If you could help us out in any way or point us in the right direction we would be very grateful. If you could provide any or some of the above will you please e-mail us back with an idea of cost. looking forward to hearing from you. yours faithfully Jon Belsey
There are two very useful forms, that the club uses, that I have now put on our web site. These forms are meant to be printed and I have designed them to (hopefully) print on one or two side of one piece of paper. If some of you would read or print them out and give me feedback, especially if it prints well, I would greatly appreciated it. The first one is a membership application that should print on one page and be mailed in. This is the first thing that I have done that even looks like I am trying to increase membership. Because we are very comfortable in terms of money I have taken an passive approach to gaining members. Even with my passive stance the club is growing at a good rate. People just do not want to be pressured about such things. I did not post the membership application to convince people to join but instead to make it more convenient when people feel ready. Several people were asking me to bring membership application on the rides so they could officially join but I usually forgot. This way anyone can print and mail this from home. This form can be found at MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION = http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Application.htm The second new form on our web site is the ride sign up sheet and waiver. This should be printed and brought to each ride by the ride leader. Everyone participating on the ride should sign it. Legally all we need is the signatures but an address and phone number for any newer riders will also be required. We had a scare last summer where we lost someone on a Mt bike ride and had no way of finding out if she made it home. She later called us from home. Several members wanted a ride sign up sheet after that. This should print on two pages. This form can be found at RIDE SIGN UP AND WAIVER = http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/ridewaiver.htm Tim Travis
Well, Cindie is out of town (Cindie's temporary email cindietravisno smamgeologist.com) and I have received no article for the PBAC section. This is my fault because I did not ask. I will next time. The biggest news is that our City Council voted unanimously in favor of the striping proposal to accommodate bike lanes on the Watson Woods Bridge. This happened because of the tremendous efforts by the newly reformed PBAC committee. This means that Prescott is getting its first real bike lane with a sign, diamond, and the whole works. Now that the new bridge is getting bike lanes it should be easier to get real bike lanes on more roads. This truly is a monumental action by the city and the PBAC. It has set a new standard and paved the way for future bike lanes. Many of you have something to say or contribute. I hear it while I am riding or in a bike shop. I encourage everyone to participate. PBAC really needs you. The place to direct your enthusiasm is either email or most importantly at the PBAC meeting. These meetings are open to all and are on the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 PM in the basement of City Hall. There is a lot of new members and now is a good time to get involved. I think I speak for the Chain Gang when I thank the PBAC for their work and I would
especially like to thank Cindie, Marcee and Debbie who did the vast majority of the work
on the bridge. BIG CHAIN GANG THANKS Below I have copied some email to pass along to clarify things. Tim Travis Jennifer McCormack wrote: From: Jennifer McCormack <jmccormackno smamci.prescott.az.us> Tim Travis - President - Chain Gang Cycling Club Ride Schedule = http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/Schedule/RideSchedule.htm Chain Gang Web Site= http://surf-ici.com/chaingang/index.htmBuilt and Maintained by PrescottYellowPages.com  |
