Bike198.com – Live and Pedaling Forward
Over the weekend, we unwrapped the new Bike198.com! You may have already noticed, but things have drastically changed including the domain name. Bike198.com is allowing the site to grow to a completely new level, so I would like to thank you for your patience with the switch and the support that you have given this site to allow us to grow to this point.
First…what doesn’t change…
Already subscribed to Mountain Biking by 198 via email or RSS feed? You do not have to change a thing to be subscribed to Mountain.Bike198.com! Everything was taken care of behind the scenes and your feed is updating as usual…you do not have to change a thing on your end. You are not…however…subscribed to the new sites Road.Bike198.com or Urban.Bike198.com.
Subscribed to the Mountain Biking by 198 Newsletter? Nothing changes for you there either. Everything is setup and switched over, so we are functioning normally without any changes on your end. Just keep on soaking up the content and thank you for the support.
What did change…
Obviously…the site layout and domain changed. The good news…it is MUCH EASIER TO REMEMBER! The new homepage is simply Bike198.com and the subdomains are Mountain.Bike198.com, Road.Bike198.com and Urban.Bike198.com and all of those are accessible through the new portal homepage Bike198.com. Each site has its own RSS feed and unique content relevant to the sites sub niche of cycling. There is a lot of growth that is going to take place in these two areas to continue to bring high quality reviews, tips and other related content to the readers of Bike198.com.
The homepage layout of each of the sites was drastically changed to make navigation and general use much easier to digest and navigate. As we continue to tweak the elements, things are just going to get better and better, but this “1.0 version” completely blows the other layout out of the water in terms of usability. This is a great step forward for the site as the content continues to expand.
To make things a little bit easier to navigate between sites, you will find a picture at the bottom of every page that looks like the one directly above. Each of those items (logo and each subdomain name) are click-able to make it easy to navigate back and forth between sites.
The New Additions to Bike198.com
This site was founded by mountain biking. As things continued to grow, we were seeing an increased interest in two other areas of cycling on the site…road and commuter. To answer the needs of the Mountain Biking by 198 readers, the move to Bike198.com was made and Urban and Road were born.
To kick things off at Urban.Bike198.com, we are reviewing a kick ass commuter bike from Breezer Bikes (pictures and first look post by clicking here).
If You Have Linked To Mountain Biking by 198
First…thank you. The links to Mountain Biking by 198 from your blogs, websites and forums have been a huge contributing factor to the continued growth of this site and I really appreciate the support. With the domain change, it would help out a ton if you guys could change your links to the new site. If you linked to a specific article on Mountain Biking by 198, simply replace “http://www.mtbtrailreview.com/article-name/” with “http://mountain.bike198.com/article-name/” and everything will hit correctly. It is really as simple as that.
If you have linked multiple times and you want an easy one step process with Wordpress…hit me up and I’ll get you the instructions.
Thank You Again
The entire crew at Bike198.com is extremely stoked about the changes. Thank you for the continued support of the site as we move forward into a new era.
So what do you think?
Did you know?
By clicking on our links then shopping at JensonUSA, Hunk N Roll, Chainlove and Amazon, you are helping Bike198. We use them and LBS's for our gear. Thank you for supporting the crew at Bike198.
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Tags: Bike Reviews, bike198, commuter biking, mountain biking, road biking
Want to contribute content to mountain.bike198.com? Gain access to thousands of mountain bikers and be a part of a growing community by submitting guest tips and reviews on Bike198. Hit up the contact form to get started!
Looks good, but it seems the server clock is not set for DST or just set incorrectly. I’m posting at 7:33am on 1/4/2010, but the site shows the article was made on 1/4/2010 at 8:08am. Maybe it’s just too early and I’m have lack of coffee symptoms. Anyway, the new layout is nice.
Thanks John. I’ll check into that. Now…where is my coffee?
Congratulations Robb, my first impression of the new homepage was ‘no it can’t be right, just rssfeeds’, then I discovered that your offering is now HUGE, three sub-domains that is a lot of work involved. I’m sure you now have more manpower lending a hand than before, since your content is now diverse.
Muzi,
You’d think we had more people involved, but its still “just the two of us..” but, mostly Robb.
Yeah the new homepage is an aggregator for the 3 sites now. We are working on getting more contributors!
New site looks cool Rob, well done. I’ll link you through to mine.
Thanks man! I really appreciate that.
Awesome job on the new site(s) Robb and team! Splitting bike198.com into sub-sites was a perfect solution for creating a one-stop-shop for all things two wheeled and without a motor. The new layout looks great and I’ve already added the urban and road feeds into my reader. Best of luck in 2010.
Thanks Jason! It only made since to structure everything this way after the success with the road and commuting articles on Mountain Biking by 198. It should make everything much easier to find as well.
Robb, nice work on the new site(s). Way back in the spring of last year I stumbled upon mtbtrailreview.com, signed up for the newsletter, and the rest is history. Quickly, your site became my go-to MTB site for reviews and other related news because there were frequent updates, new content, and it was always relevant to what I was riding/shopping for at the time.
Looking forward to the new design, I can see that I will be able to get my content easier, the layout is more friendly, and it allows the owner (you) to focus more on giving me and all of your readers the great content we have come to expect.
I’m not a big participant of the “Road” side of cycling, but I’m sure, judging by the content you’ve given me on the MTB side, I will quickly become a fan and probably be motivated to get out on my road bike a bit more this year!
Great work and here’s to a fantastic 2010!
Thanks for the continued support Aaron! The ease of use was a huge factor in this layout. There is still some visual tweaking to be done…but the structure is much better.
The new site design looks great…very clean. I will change the link in my sidebar to bike198.com.
Looking forward to seeing content from the 3 distinct sites in 2010.
Thanks James! Looking forward to your redesign as well.
Hey Robb… nice work on the new design. You know I fully-understand all the work you’ve been through since I’ve done this very recently. The new design is clean and should really allow you to build out the site in many areas.
I wonder though… are you sure you want to go with sub-domains? It does split your pagerank and makes things a bit wordy, but I’m sure you’ve thought through the pros/cons there.
Keep it up man!
Thanks Jason!
The sub-domains structure is adopted from sites like tutsplus.com, maccreate.com and a couple of others that we have talked or know the owners of. Even though there are some riders that try out or participate in all forms, there are a lot that chose to call one place home…so the other material wouldn’t really be applicable.
It also opens up the network for more specific, niche based advertising to a more targeted group of riders…and let’s me release specific products on each site targeted to those readers.
That was the short version of the reason!