Like you, we’re all avid bike blog readers here. I personally read as many as I can find, big and small. If someone took the time to write about it, it gets added to my Google reader. Of course, I have almost 1,000 unread messages and over 40 blogs in there, but that doesn’t stop me from adding more. Sometimes, though, the well read blogs tend to be a little incestuous, referring to each other over and over in a constant link-feeding frenzy, which can make it hard to find some of the new voices out there.
We wanted a way to make it easier to find those new voices, so we’ve done something about it. Starting now, there’s a new content sharing site out there: Spoke and Word! Just like the bigger sites of its ilk, like Digg, Spoke and Word lets users submit and vote on stories, but it’s better. “Why?”, you ask. Because it’s just for bike-related content, you pedal-pusher, you!
So, what’s in it for us? Bike bloggers are usually well-positioned in the bike community, whether as members of clubs, polo teams, the industry, or as messengers, commuters, advocates. They have insight, knowledge, and perspective that every pedal-pusher can benefit from. Because of the more dedicated bloggers out there, new trends, fads, and products ricochet around the internet as fast as those rocks kicked at your head by truck tires. We just want to keep abreast of everything interesting and new, or old, as the case may be.
So, what’s in it for you? There’s so much more out there than just the big five bike blogs (oh, come on, you know which ones I’m talking about). You can just check out the front page at Spoke and Word to see which stories are getting the most attention or flip over to the Fresh Bike News section to see what the most recent submissions are. Or submit a story yourself. You can do it from this page by clicking the little bike wheel icon in the “Share and Enjoy:” section below. There’s even a bookmarklet available to submit directly from a blog or traditional site.
Are you a blogger yourself? This is a great way to show off your blog without feeling too sleezy about self-promotion. You can submit your own blog post, but if nobody likes it, it doesn’t get the votes. But if they do, you’re now a made blogger. Sit back, flip on your laptop’s music player, sip your coffee, and drink in the successful blogger life. It’s all waiting for you at Spoke and Word. Or something like that.
We’ve been posting like mad for a while here, just so we could see what we’re all reading. Now it’s your turn. We’d like to see what you’re reading, too.