As soon as my delayed Easyjet flight landed in London around 1am and I got my very tired self home I remembered the post I had written last week. I asked all of you to send me in some birthday wishes. I was worried to check it because what if there was just 2 comments in there!
I created the post before my short trip to Jordan and Israel. Two countries that I thoroughly enjoyed and would happily recommend.
As my laptop loaded and I clicked on London Cyclist I found there was more than 2 comments. There was around 85 and all of them really nice and reading through them instantly put a huge smile on my face! So thank you so much for everyone who took the time to leave their birthday wishes. It was also the perfect thing to read upon my return to London.
I wanted to pick out a couple of them:
“Your blog has not only made me feel safer about cycling but also allowed me to pass on your tips and advice to my boyfriend when he first started cycling to work (and I was worried about him!). So thanks for everything – keep up the good work.”
This comment by Caroline sums up perfectly why I run this blog. Making it easy for people to start cycling safely and enjoy it.
…you did a review of cycle cafes once upon a time. One of them was near my work; I wandered over to check them out. I got along brilliantly with them, and am now building a new bike with the lovely people.
Elena – happy to help you discover some new things in London!
OK a few things … discovering Wiggle…finding your recommendations for good waterproof jackets…Micycle workshops….bike cleaning ….. buying a floor stand pump (thanks- brilliant!)….bike marking schemes with local police (my local plod emailed me the next day)…the low-down on overtaking and waiting-at-lights etiquette …and also I like your style of writing about bikes so makes me feel good about cycling in London.
Thank you Claire for picking out so many things!
Encouragement to a not-so-confident cyclist to become a much more confident one!
Definitely one of the best outcomes of the blog! Thank you Ann.
I also really liked this image that was sent to me by Brian of a GPS drawing that took 2 hours to do!
Just pretend it says Andreas!
All of the comments were amazing. So thank you so much. Was interesting to see how useful people are finding the maintenance guide and also the cycling routes.
Which brings me on nicely to the big update…
The London Cycle Routes eBook, which has been downloaded just over 400 times, will be receiving a major overhaul. Just yesterday, I was busy improving the maps on the first three routes. Now they are far clearer and easier to follow. It made me wonder why I didn’t just make these improvements sooner!
Above that I also listened to all the feedback emails I received and I’ve started adding a Google Maps version of them to make it extremely easy for someone to use.
Of course the biggest suggestion people had was “more of the same!”. So I’ll be adding 5 more routes to the eBook for people to enjoy.
I’ll reveal more of the exciting new features in the coming weeks but needless to say I’m sure there’s going to be some very happy customers!
The good news is, as promised, anyone who has downloaded the eBook will receive a copy of the new version for free. Though, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to send it out yet as I have to figure that one out (hopefully it won’t involve a painfully slow one, by one email – but if that’s what it takes then I’ll do it!)
The new version will really complete the guide and I’ll be proud when I add it to the website 10 days from now.
Thank for for reading the London Cyclist Blog!
Regarding the ebook update. Some company’s do a Zero charge for things like this. You simply go through the normal pay procedure but the fee is zero. That way you get round the problem of just sending a link to all the ebook holders who could then just pass the link on.
Just a thought.
I’ll take a look at E-Junkie. I’m sure they have some kind of functionality for it.