Author Topic: the mothership

sam

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the mothership
« on: May 09, 2008 »
I've been thinking about BikeReader.com (reviewed here, totally impartially). This was my first web construction project, after we all found we'd managed to survive the millennium bug. I was an internet virgin and didn't know what the hell I was doing. (So what's new.) Clicked onto this page tonight and was reminded how the more things change the more they stay the same. Read the first paragraph. I could have written that for acf.

I stopped updating BR years ago. It was too much work for too little satisfaction, though I enjoyed foraging. I even typed in an entire book. It was a short book, but still.

That site was my loft insulation reclamation project. I don't buy and seldom read cycling mags anymore, though if I did I would probably pick up Singletrack, which looks excellent. Shame I'm not into, well, singletrack.

Much of the fruit of my own dalliance with this niche market can be accessed by clicking here. Can't say I was a success, if success can be measured in fame, plaudits and wealth. My entire career was predicated on boredom: it doesn't take long to grow weary of the articles which comprise the bulk of such magazines, and I couldn't bear to write them myself.



I'm no longer in the game, to the extent that I ever was, and even let my press pass lapse. The only reason I obtained one in the first place was because I thought it would be cool to have one and could get me and my camera into some places free. Handy hint: if you don't want to pay to see the London Bike Show, you don't actually need a pass. Just say you're press when you register online. They never check. At least not until anybody with a say in the matter reads something like this.

Where were we? Right, BikeReader. The mothership, as the forum originally lived in its URL. A floating library. Still tethered to me. Now docked on acf's homepage - click on 'second' in "The second best kept secret on the internet". And maybe it is.